chiefbeef123

When I relapse and vape or drink too much, I trigger a manic state where I love making music or coding games or sketching or making sound effects for games. When I'm not manic, you'd be lucky if I spent 1/4 of my time on anything resembling productive habits.

I am once again asking you to listen to another Valheim take. I haven't lost this much sleep and spent every other moment bookmarking or making notes based off ideas that come to me when offline since Minecraft's alpha. This game is brilliant. The only "janky" thing about it is that it fully embraces its jank without calling attention to itself, sort of like how Kojima might make some obscure joke that only people who played every Metal Gear game on MSX would get. They know people love souls games and sailing and loot and playing with friends, and they did the seemingly impossible feat of making a game that's as innovative and fun as the games they were inspired by.

@sinusodial check out Klei's other games if you liked that one. Ninja is the best 2D stealth game ever imo. Invisible Inc is great if you like hard tactical RPGs. Shank I never played. Don't Starve is obviously beautiful and innovative. They remind me a lot of Supergiant Games. Take their sweet time and hire people who are equally passionate and experienced with making games and analyzing them.

Even if this game is mediocre or "fragments the community" or whatever, I will enjoy it. Sometimes I just wanna put on some Spotify and grind through PVE without worrying whether my Orisa might yell at me because I was healing her instead of damage boosting. I don't even fuck with comp. This is EXACTLY what I wanted more of from Overwatch. If they support it and keep adding more missions, I could see myself playing this for years to come.

@matt_parker I'm not too surprised. It could have a beta this year. There's been some rumors of that. Blizzard is known for announcing something, then either delivering when they think it's ready or having a massively problematic launch (remember trying to play Diablo 3 at midnight?) I'd rather have them rethink things and playtest more and make promises they might not fully follow through with than get something that feels like a $60 game that's still in beta.

@frodobaggins I know this is a shot in the dark, but do you wanna play sometime? I play on PC. Have something like 500 hours. Have never found someone who plays the game regularly and still enjoys it--and isn't toxic. PM me! I usually play support but I'm getting more into Junkrat, Sigma, Ana, etc.

yes, I know that's not healthy. We're in a pandemic and the only sure thing is that Texas is about to be about as germ-free as a urinal cake in a dive bar bathroom. Anyway, in no particular order, this is why you SHOULD give Valheim a chance even if you tend to hate crafting or combat or open world or whatever.

Yes, the game might seem easy if you've watched the 1st or 2nd biome. Fear not. Those are like the tutorial level of Dark Souls. And they throw you right into BLIGHTOWN with nothing more than a bronze weapon you could barely manage to craft and a troll tunic that only absorbs sweat, not damage. You go from wailing away on enemies and killing them easily as if it's a mindless hack n slash to dying to an elite enemy because you got greedy and didn't realize he had two friends hiding behind the corner you ran past. I almost wonder if the developers took a step back after making the first two biomes and thought "Fuck, this is too easy. The testers don't feel like it's dangerous and mysterious enough. Let's crank it up so high yet keep it so engaging that even your niece who dropped off Animal Crossing after a month will do anything she can to get more play time." Think the slight ballsiness of designers like Cliff Blezinski or Kojima, but they ACTUALLY MAKE SOMETHING YOU WANNA PLAY. They clearly played Dark Souls and 100s of hours of WoW and Rust and probably Rogue, too. For an early access game, it feels super polished and there's always something new to craft or explore or test out with a friend. It's similar to the flow you get into on Skyrim or Minecraft where you wanna make a bit more progress before you log off. If you die, don't worry. Your loot will be there even if you die again. And if you sailed recklessly way out there without moving your spawn point, good luck. I hope you have friends willing to guard you as you go back--or the determination to get those items back solo and learn from your mistake along the way.

The story is minimal, but well written. Like Soulslikes, you really don't need to know the story at all to get something out of it. But if you love Norse mythology, the writing is better than expected and will no doubt only be fleshed out and flavored up even more now that they have 5 million sold and a huge roadmap ahead.

The jumping and air control is actually good. I can jump from one wall of my castle to the other which seems a bit too far, but I can adjust as needed and PROBABLY won't fall to my death. Even if the framerate decides to nosedive despite only looking at a dirt texture below me, I can usually land it or easily respawn a few feet away.

My only complaint is that my 7 year old gaming laptop (that can run Witcher 3 or Prey or Overwatch with no issues) cannot handle this game. It kinda feels like they did low poly in hopes of optimizing it, but then layered on lighting and bloom and lots of stuff that seems okay for my video card but is getting my CPU a lot more hot than it ideally should be. (They were a team of 5 before this game dropped, so give em some time.) I pieced together my frankenstein-esque gaming pc that had been in hiberation because i needed that more powerful card and CPU. It runs super smooth on my Radeon R9 390. My i7 gets to 90C sometimes, but it's also using the stock fan right now. Haven't had any overheating. Only crashed once. Haven't ever lost connection to the dedicated server I play on.

Honestly, if you have ever enjoyed a game like Minecraft or Don't Starve or WoW or Breath of the Wild, try it. You could refund it if it doesn't click. Chances are you have friends who own it or might get it if they hear you have it. I haven't had this much fun with cooperative multiplayer since Destiny 2 raids or Halo 2 multiplayer. Fuck. This game is gonna be a massive hit. It already is.

GO FORTH AND BURN THEIR YOUNG.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

A few months back, Dan and Drew did a livestream of Perfect Dark co-op together. I think it was part of Extra Life. Looked on both their YouTube channels and on here but I can't find it. Can someone please provide the link? Thank you.

Played it for about 6 hours. Don't think I'll go back. Yes, it's similar to Breath of the Wild, but it has none of what BOTW great. Puzzles are super simple. The elemental stuff is super basic and boring compared to BOTW. Also seems extremely easy. Only had characters die once or twice.

@phillipcat: True, but Abby was seeking revenge for killing her dad (the Firefly surgeon) in the same way Ellie is seeking revenge for her killing Joel.

Overall I really enjoyed the game. I didn't feel much empathy for Ellie once she started on her murder/revenge streak. I started enjoying the game a lot more once it switched over to Abby's story. I found those characters a lot more relatable and fleshed out than the characters in Ellie's story.

I think the game should have ended with the scene of Ellie and Dina happily living on the farm. It felt really forced that Joel's brother shows up, guilt trips Ellie for a few minutes, and then suddenly she flips back to being purely obsessed with revenge. It wasn't believable at all. She was living a happy, safe life with Dina and her child after everything she's been through. Why would she abandon all that?

Jeff and Brad do seem to be more picky about framerate and visuals, but that's something a lot of people care about. Their job as game journalists is to report their opinions and observations of the games they play. If a game doesn't meet their expectations, they're going to vent about it just like any other player would.

Sony makes a black box: "wow, what a classic elegant design"

Sony tries something different: "ugly"